WTF Is It Now?!?

Bush's top cultural adviser steps down over looting of Iraqi museum
Martin Sullivan, the head of pResident Evil's cultural advisory committee, stepped down this week in protest over the United States failing to stop the looting of Baghdad's museum.

"The reports in recent days about the looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities and the destruction of countless artifacts that document the cradle of Western civilization have troubled me deeply, a feeling that is shared by many other Americans," he wrote.

Calling the looting a "tragedy," Sullivan said that it was not prevented "due to our nation's inaction."

A source close to the committee said on condition of anonymity that another committee member, Gary Vikan, was also stepping down. - link.

.....and in a related story....

Rumsfeld ignored repeated warnings about destruction of Iraq's priceless heritage
"In the months leading up to the Iraq war, U.S. scholars repeatedly urged the Defense Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country. Late in January, a mix of scholars, museum directors, art collectors and antiquities dealers asked for and were granted a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss their misgivings. McGuire Gibson, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, said yesterday that he went back twice more, and he and colleagues peppered Defense Department officials with e-mail reminders in the weeks before the war began. 'I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected,' Gibson said." - link (thanks to democrats.com).